Bury v Thornton Cleveleys 13-48

Coming off the back of a cup victory last week, Bury RUFC were to open their league account against Thornton Cleveleys in the reformed Lancashire division.
With a fantastic playing surface and a summer of hard work spent on improving the facilities further, the weather was perfect for an entertaining game of rugby.
The home team were to start brightly with a kick off chased down and pressure put on the visitors led to a home team line out. A catch and drive powered by the Bury pack including Mark Blain and Israr Asif allowed for the dynamic Ed Watkins to peel cleverly from the maul avoiding the opposition hooker and darting under the posts for the opening try of the afternoon. The conversion was narrowly missed.
The opposition were to respond immediately form the kickoff Bury were deemed to have gone off their feet at the resulting ruck and a penalty was awarded and successfully kicked.
The teams were both still shaking off their early season issues and both sides were trying to play good running rugby. For Bury the combination of Tom Smith and Joe Kelly pulling the strings and Dom Bennett , Will Smith and Gabe Bryant adding the pace.
The visitors were to score again just before half time allowing them to take a narrow lead into the interval.
Half time saw the introduction the Bury substitutes, some for injuries; others for tactical reasons.
Again the Bury side started brightly and attacked the Thornton Cleveleys line, but a break out by the visitors fullback allowed for some intricate play to finish a very well worked try and increase their lead.
Bury were to respond next, following a period of pressure and some excellent work by Captain Alan Dobson, Oliver Frechini and Alex English, the home side were looking highly threatening. The break was to come through centre Leo Frechini with some great work at the break down a penalty was awarded for not releasing on the ground. With quick thinking Frechini was able to dart over the Cleveleys line to claw back the score to 10-13.
The game continued to be fairly even and highly interesting with the score poised on a knife edge. The introduction of back row Jonny Allen was a boost for the home side, but further injuries in key positions started to show and Thornton, playing some wonderful rugby, were able to get a strong foothold in the game with a flurry of quick tries.
Bury struggled to respond, but for a penalty kicked by Joe Kelly to add a further three points, to leave a final score of 13 - 48.
A disappointing result for Bury, but with many positives and areas to work on to be taken away from the game. Bury will now look to bounce back away to Burnley RUFC next Saturday 3pm kick off.